Wannon – Australia 2025

LIB 3.5% vs IND

Incumbent MP
Dan Tehan, since 2010.

• Geography
• Redistribution
• History
• Candidates
• Assessment
• 2022 results
• Booth breakdown
• Results maps

Geography
South-western Victoria. Wannon covers the southwestern corner of Victoria, including Warrnambool, Portland, Ararat, Lorne and Hamilton. Wannon covers Colac Otway, Ararat, Corangamite, Glenelg, Moyne, Southern Grampians and Warrnambool council areas, most of the Surf Coast council area, about half of the Pyrenees council area, and a small part of the Golden Plains council area.

Redistribution
Wannon expanded to the east towards Geelong, taking in Inverleigh, Modewarre and Moriac from Corangamite. These changes cut the Liberal margin from 3.9% to 3.5%.

History
Wannon is an original federation seat, having been created for the 1901 election. It has mainly been held by the Liberal Party and its predecessors, with the exception of a number of short periods when it was held by the ALP, with the ALP last holding the seat up to the 1955 election.

Wannon was first won in 1901 by Free Trade candidate Samuel Cooke. Cooke was a former minister in the Victorian colonial government, and he held the seat for one term before heading overseas in 1903.

He was succeeded in 1903 by another Free Trader, Arthur Robinson, who was a former colonial/state MP in the Victorian Parliament. Robinson held the seat for one term, losing in 1906. He went on to return to the Victorian Parliament and serve as a state minister.

The ALP’s John McDougall won Wannon off Robinson in 1906, campaigning against Robinson’s anti-union views. McDougall was re-elected in 1910, but lost in 1913, and failed to return to the House of Representatives in other seats at the 1914 election, a 1915 by-election and the 1917 election.

McDougall was replaced in 1913 by Liberal candidate Arthur Rodgers. Rodgers served as a minister in the Hughes government from 1920 to 1922 He held the seat until the 1922 election, when he lost to the ALP’s John McNeill. Rodgers won the seat back in 1925, before again losing to McNeill in 1929. McNeill served as a minister in the Scullin government, before losing the seat yet again in 1931.

The United Australia Party’s Thomas Scholfield won the seat in 1931, and held it until 1940, when he lost to the ALP’s Donald McLeod. McLeod held the seat for most of the next decade, losing it in 1949 to the Liberal Party’s Daniel Mackinnon.

Mackinnon only held the seat for one term, with McLeod regaining the seat in 1951. Mackinnon went on to win the neighbouring seat of Corangamite in a 1953 by-election, and held it until 1966.

At the 1954 election, McLeod was challenged by Liberal candidate Malcolm Fraser. McLeod defeated Fraser with a 17-vote margin.

In 1955, McLeod retired, and Fraser won the seat with a comfortable margin.

Fraser was a right-winger within the Liberal Party, and sat on the backbenches for a decade before joining the ministry in 1966. He served first as Minister for the Army, then Minister for Education and Science, and then Minister for Defence.

In 1971, he resigned from the ministry in protest at John Gorton’s interference in his portfolio, triggering a party room vote which saw a tied vote, and John Gorton was replaced as Prime Minister by William McMahon.

Fraser served as a minister in the McMahon government and on the opposition frontbench in the first term of the Whitlam government. After Billy Snedden’s loss in 1974 Fraser challenged for the leadership. Under Fraser’s leadership, the Liberal Party obstructed Gough Whitlam’s government in the Senate, which eventually led to Whitlam being dismissed by the Governor-General in late 1975, and Fraser became Prime Minister.

Fraser won the 1975, 1977 and 1980 elections, but lost in 1983, and retired from Parliament shortly after.

The 1983 by-election was won by David Hawker, also of the Liberal Party. Hawker served as an opposition whip from 1989 to 1990 and as a frontbencher from 1990 to 1993, and again as a whip until the 1996 election.

Hawker served as a backbencher in the Howard government from 1996 until the 2004 election. Hawker was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives after the 2004 election, and served in the role until the 2007 election.

Hawker retired in 2010, and the seat was won by Dan Tehan. Tehan has been re-elected four times.

Candidates

Assessment
Independent candidate Alex Dyson wasn’t too far away from winning in 2022. The political environment has changed since 2022, which may make things easier for Tehan in a repeat contest.

2022 result

2022 two-candidate-preferred result

2022 two-party-preferred result

Booth breakdown

Booths have been divided into six areas. The two local government areas in the north-east of the seat have been grouped together. The four in the south-east have also been grouped together. Polling places in the other four local government areas have been grouped along council boundaries.

The Liberal Party won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in five out of six areas, ranging from 51.6% in Glenelg to 56.3% in the north-east. Alex Dyson polled 56% in Warrnambool.

Election results in Wannon at the 2022 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Liberal vs Independent or Labor), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for the Liberal Party, independent candidates and Labor.

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